Puck Soup - Holy Shit, The Capitals Won

Episode Date: May 11, 2018

Dave literally takes his victory lap in backing the Washington Capitals over the Pittsburgh Penguins. Plus, previews of the Eastern and Western Conference Finals, more owner hijinks with the Carolina Hurricanes and new coach Rod Brind'Amour, that time Greg went to Lilith Fair, whether we believe Brad Marchand's vow to stop licking dudes, the fall of Dennis Miller, Phil Kessel doesn't speak, whether Tom Cruise was actually funny in "Tropic Thunder," and Dave legitimately loses his mind over Nashville catfish tossing. Sponsored by Seat Geek and Zyppah!  

Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by The Pact. From MMA fighter Cody Garbrandt comes the inspirational memoir, The Pact, an in-depth look into the life of the brawler from his early days in a rough town in the central Appalachian region of Ohio to living his American dream of becoming a UFC fighter through the support of an unlikely friendship with a young fan with cancer. Experience the story about the power of friendship, commitment, and the will to thrive. Own your copy of The Pact from Cody Garbrand, available everywhere. Books are sold now. And enjoy the show.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. What's up? It's me, Dave. I'm really excited about today's show. I sound tired, but that's only because since

what day of the week was it, Monday, I've been taking victory laps for the Washington Capitals, beating the penguins, and I'm just exhausted, so that's why I sound like this. And I'm Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN. To set the scene, folks, Lozo is seated with his legs spread akimbo and his hands on top of his head. Think about a scene in a movie where the rich villain gets oral sex from somebody And he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like right now take care of this

This is like the position you're in It's like Pacino in a devil's the devil's advocate when the girl goes into the table at the restaurant He's like Keanu Look at this Congratulations you're about to blow the devil Oh spoiler and you're in puck soup we didn't say it last week

yeah I like when people put the clock on it to see if we actually said it or when I remember like 49 minutes in that we forgot but I figured at that point it was too late I remember you were talking and I was like we never actually did we actually there was an old there was a bit I did with Merrick once because we used to do

the like the cold open on the show then we do the opening like jingle of the show wait like you guys would do like a really bad political sketch is that what you're saying yes we would have been still around is Michael Cohen. Yeah, anybody who's whoever is having sex with Colin Joe as Tafirs is Ivanka Trump.

But there's one episode, I remember we did the entire show and then at the end of the show, I'm like, all right, let's start the show proper. And we played the opening, and it was a great bit that we only did once. And then other times think we just forgot to do it, much like when we forget to do you're in puck soup here. You're in puck suit. That's where you are.

The home of Dave Lozo. Oh, Jesus Christ. I've... The person who led the charge for the Washington Capitol. Now, did they mention me in the locker room after the game out of all? They all did. Okay. They all did.

I didn't see any quotes about it, but I assumed. It was off the record stuff probably. Oh, wait, no. They said, we were in the lose hole, and then we climbed out of it. Like, Nick Bactrum said, fuck this league of doctors who can't fix my hand. Fuck these people who don't follow noted prognosticator Dave Lozo. I, um, I've been dreading this. Like, listen, I was insufferable last year when I picked the predators over the Blackhawks,

because I was one of few. Many people picked the Capitals against the Penguins. You've been taking Victory Labs. I think you dedicated your other podcast to your victory. I would say Dedicated. I mean, they let me write the submarine headlines, so I wrote the submarine headline for the podcast. It's pretty amazing how the Capitals next to their second round beat the Penguins championship banner.

They have actually raised another one that said, Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Dave. Really, really, the support is what got us through these, these, two rounds. They flew the W as they flew the L as it were next to the W. Yeah, well like instead of raising an L, they're raising a DL.

I'm Dave Lozo. Capp's Monumental Network. Right. So I know you might have mentioned it on the other podcast we made our picks. Although the listeners, in fairness, might be confused because you did pick both sides of each series on your respective

podcasts if memory serves. So when you pick the capitals. Wait, look at you trying to find a poke hole are my genius. I'm just saying that when you did this podcast. This is like when you posted that screenshot from your ESPN thing where you were like, I almost picked the caps look. Yeah, no, oh no, that was

I need to do that for every series. It was basically a roundtable we did it called How the Caps could win. I'm like, oh, this is fucking great. We should do this for every series. Sure. Because then I can go back and be like, look it, I found the blueprint for them. Clearly they followed it. And just like cap the screenshot right at the bottoms where you can just see the pick, like in bold, but you

can't quite see what it is? What does that say P-7? What was that say? It said, probably caps. Yeah, probably. Put your pens down and write caps. No, I remember on the podcast, you picked both. You said, oh, I've made one set of picks on biscuits.

That's for the first round. And then I'm going to make, oh, so then the second round you made consistent picks. Where I, once the Preds win tonight, I'll be 4 and 0 in the second round. Just undefeated. Breezing through. It's pretty incredible. You know who else is 4-0 right now if the Preds win? My dad, and he knows fuck all about hockey.

So I guess that's why the smart people like me are struggling. And you're doing so well. Man, you've had four days to prepare for comebacks. And so far, all you got is, didn't you big two separate picks and one round? And you're the same as my dad. No, honey. I ain't preparing nothing for anything. I've been dreading this like a fucking trip to the dentist.

Like, if the dentist had set up shop at the DMV and also all my ex-girlfriends were there to point and laugh at my penis while I got a root canal in the DMV, that's how much I've been dreading this podcast to hear you gloat about this bullshit. I will now take the victory. laugh. He's actually running around the studio. He's actually walking and waving like the queen. Like the queen. He's high-fiving the parts of the studio that dull the noise. He's a He's talking to my backpack and asking if it wants him to sign its breasts.

He just said he can't have any interviews to two acoustic guitars in the corner. I couldn't have done it without you. Yeah. No, I couldn't have done it. Alex. Yeah. Go get ready for game one. Yeah.

Well, I'm appreciative that I got to see a glimpse of what happens every time you take a healthy shit at home. That's good. That was nice. Well, I mean, you do watch the Jets every Sunday, so you know what it's like. It's watching a very healthy shit at home. So why did you think it would be different this time besides blind luck? Blind luck. Greg, let me tell you a little thing about heart.

And the will to win. Yes. Okay. I've done to hear this. That had nothing to do with it. Let me tell you about a man named Braden Holpe, Greg. A man who, for reasons unbeknownst to anyone, was running to the ground as the caps sprinted towards President's trophies.

And then this year, he poops his pants for a little bit, and the caps are like, you know what? You know what we had to do? Phil Grubauer. And that bad decision led to a good deal. led to a good decision, which was to put Holpey back in for game two. It was a really good decision. One might say it should have been the decision all along to play him.

However, if they did play him in game one, maybe it doesn't go the same way. Maybe it's different. So that bad mistake, it's sort of like in Carolina where they're just going to make a bunch of mistakes off the bat and hope that it doesn't matter. Oh, we'll get to that later. The Caps just said, hey, let's accidentally rest Holpey during your regular season so he's ready for the postseason. So he's not dead in the second round.

And in the game where they had to basically have Braden Holpey win it for them, he did. And look, I feel like some people saw my genius coming. So they jumped on the bandwagon. I told them to. The bandwagon was here. So you're saying that no one had picked the capitals until they saw you as sort of the Moses of good thinking. And you led them to the promised land. I led them out of a land of French fries on salads.

Yeah, it's overrated pizzas. or overrated sandwiches and I said here come with me to the third round where I promptly said okay

this is as far as I go I'm going to go get on that Tampa Nashville bus over there because that's really the bus that I'm into so everyone I appreciate you coming along

for the ride we sung songs it was great yeah if you can help Nick Baxterm onto the bus you can't grip the rally

make sure it doesn't fall yeah now listen I I'll say this about the um and the penguins were just worn down that too that was part of the penguins were down were worn down i would say that some of them were dealing with injuries that we'll talk about that later may or may not have been disclosed hey we we can't reveal injuries in the offseason what if phil kessel goes to the grocery store and someone hits him of the shopping car and exacerbates

the injury yeah that sounds like more of an eric johnson injury the um i still want to know how he really got hurt yeah right i love those injuries look at me i'm mad max whoa shit hey i'm jeff kit I'm just cleaning my truck. That's what happened. So I thought they had a chance to win for a couple reasons. Who the Caps? Yeah. And they were all of the players that had been there for previous playoff disappointments

and the fact, as had been voiced by a couple of guys in the locker room, because it made a lot of sense to me when you start talking this team and kind of getting in their heads a little bit. No one expected him to do shit this year. Exactly. That's part of it, too. Yeah. And that's part of it.

Like the minute, like, as has been a mantra on this very podcast for quite a long time, Dave Lozo. When you lower expectations to their lowest point, what happens? You can never be disappointed. You can never be disappointed. You can never feel the pressure of expectations if you don't have them. So I would proffer. In my prognostication, in my analysis and situation, the best thing to ever happen to the Washington Capitals

is Kevin Chatton Kirk being horrible in the playoffs. Because if he had been good, maybe you win last year, but you didn't. And you look back on the trade, and it was their moment of saying we took our best shot after a three-year build. and we fell short and now we're fucked, but whatever, we're going to play a bunch of kids and see what happens. And it was at that moment when they raised the white flag. It wasn't a bunch of kids.

Like, the Mante Smith-Pelry is not 22. Well, no, but it's Jacob Verona. Well, it's for a period. Chandler-Stevenson or whatever. Come on. This week on Days of Our Lives, can the family figure out a way to stop Chandler-Stevenson scheming? Wait, who? Is that a guy?

That's not a real name. Kianti, you have to marry one of these two men. Chandler-Stevenson or Mackenzie Blackwood. Mother, I have something to tell you. Oh, it might. It's not Nathan Walker. Wait, wait. Mother, I have something to tell you, I'm already betrothed.

To barkley, good droves. Nathan Walker. I go down under. That's why all the lasses on this show like me. There's really nothing better in life than you've got me because that's off. Heard of the game being like, so hey uh coozy what did you think of the play on nathan walker in this game coozy he is uh oh i don't i lack the words he is a motherfucker i know and like i found out afterwards by the way twice in one series being able to quote a capital saying fuck is pretty great well see he said this this time as we all know yeah as as you know is it made it up i've heard people on the download give me shit for that thing like it was somehow off the record to hear a guy bellowing fuck this league within within your shot of the media section right by the locker room.

Were all these people, someone who work for rights holders and teams, who never want to upset the apple cart? God forbid. But like, the greatest thing about it is I found out afterwards from a cop's reporter, I'm like, yeah, as you see that Nathan Walker quote from Kuznatsov? They're like, yeah, they've had to tell him like six times to stop saying motherfucker in interviews. Well, that she was cursing too. They were like, what were you thinking when, because Natsoff was off on the break going?

He was like, hope he fucking scores. Scores. Yeah. Great. Curse. Could you just imagine like you had a cat? Cousy,

could you take us through the tying goal here in game 61 of the regular season? Oh, motherfucker. It's like Sam Gackson and Russian. I'm going to score

these motherfucking goals on this motherfucking team. Also, this just lends more credence to the backstrum things. Apparently the caps can't stop fucking saying fuck. So they must like the podcast. They speak the Queens English.

Yeah, I think it's all the younger players, especially the ones that played in game six because they didn't know any bad. matter, Nathan Walker included, that he, you know, assisted on a pretty important goal in that game. And then, like, again, like, we talked about this before with Ovetkin. We're both defenders of Ovi. We're both guys that have stood up to the forces of the Canadian media who are like, we're heroes, really. You're like, he's a liability, eh? I'd assume what they say.

Yeah, we're like, we're like Cap and Bucky with just less sexual attention. Right, exactly. I don't know. I mean, the way you're sitting again. I'm feeling it today. So, and the microphone is placed strategically right there. Right on the chin. I just, I just, I just, I meant, I meant the, the microphone stand is fallically placed between your legs. The, and the microphone itself is placed under your chin. Yeah, people have commented that my penis is very much like a, uh, like a microphone stand and that it's, it's angular and shaped weird. Your penis is a motherfucker. So, well, yes, they deserve to score. I hope they burn in hell. So, we've been defenders of a batch again in the postseason for a long time, but I've never

seen him do important shit like this before. Like he's his numbers are great as I've often said since 2008 for guys that have played at least 60 games in the postseason no one has a higher goals for game average and Alex DeVetchkin noted playoff choker. Now he's never

done this shit though. There's never been a series where you look back on their victory and you can point to three game winning goals especially obviously against the penguins. All three. In which he had a hand to them. That's a high bar to have a year. Scored one game winner? winner and 75% of wins. That's a lot.

Assisted on two game winners. I see, like, if I was prepared for this, I go back and look and see it. I remember he had some really good Rangers series where just his teammates blew, I'll say goat. I don't know. I was going to say they blew ass, but that made no sense. How do you blow an ass? So I think that he was present and accounted for in this series in ways that he wasn't

previously. And so that's a huge difference. And now, on the other side of the equation, the penguins were tired. Penguins have gone, have played four extra months. Well, let's see. The Caps went to the second round both times. So that's a month of hockey while the penguins have played four months of hockey. That's three extra months of hockey.

You're going to get worn down. Then you look around, like the penguins have always been a team that could kind of figure shit out, right? So then you look around this lineup and you're like, okay, how do we lose this game? Oh, Chris LaTang fucked up. How do we lose this game? Oh, Chris LaTang fucked up again. They're like, uh-oh. They got to trade him.

He's a dog. But hey, wait, wait, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, happen, why didn't we turn this thing around? I mean, other guys make mistakes. Yeah, Matt Murray wasn't good? Like, uh-oh, wait, those are two guys you can usually depend on. Well, after those guys, I mean, like, wasn't there someone to lift our spirits? Yeah, Nick Benino's in Nashville, Matt Collins in Minnesota, uh, Chris Koonitz was in Tampa Bay. Malk and missed 33% of the game in that injury. And so, like, you start, you start, you start looking around, you realize, oh, shit, wait, this is not the same cut of,

cut of meat that we've seen sizzled up in the last few years. I don't necessarily think they lost because Matt Colin and Nick Benino weren't there. I think it all adds up. When you're skating around looking for a hero and you're looking at Chad Ruehiedel to do something instead of, you know, someone else. Yeah, but I mean, Derek Brassar didn't really do anything. Yeah, precisely, that's my point.

They replaced working parts with parts that didn't work as well. Well, all parts they had, too, weren't working, like Phil Kessel. There's a million guys that weren't doing anything. I know. Nick Benino is not the reason why the penguins would have won this series. I think it's part of the equation. Crystal Tang, I think, playing with, like, his hand sliced.

Remember that? Nick Benino, or Nick Benino, Chris LaTang has his hand sliced open, and he took off his glove, and he had just, like, this gigantic gash on his hand. Then he put the glove back on, and everyone's like, can't figure out what's wrong, Chris Lang. Maybe he has a 10-foot hole in his hand. But you go to overtime, and you got some of those guys that aren't there, your Chris Kunitz scoring his one goal for the playoffs,

and it happens to be in that playoff overtime, that kind of shit. It all adds up. It all adds up, man. They still had the, the problem was that, I just don't necessarily think it was the fact that they didn't have Chris Kunitz, Nick Benino, and Matt Collin. I think it was because they had Crosby, Mock, and Kestel. Lattang just not playing it well.

Crosby played well except for game six. Oh, that's true. Crosby and Gensel. Yeah. I'm sorry, Gensel and Crosby. Oh, and by the way, you're talking about disappearing acts. Gets. Guess what happened in game five? The Capitol started hitting the shit out of Jake Gensel. Guess what happened in five and six? He did not score.

Oh. No. No. He didn't stop scoring because he got hits. This is observational and analytical. He was 20 points in... They beat the shit out of Gensel. And he didn't put up a point in the last few games of the series. but he had 20 points in 10 games

yep he was so you're telling me if they if they hadn't stopped checking him he would have been a two points per game I'm saying I'm saying they targeted him and I'm saying he got punched in the mouth and he didn't respond because he looks like a little cherub oh my god he looks like he looks like uh angel from X X3 X men X the last stand but he looks like Ben Foster from that remember oh yeah oh right oh not not the not the angel wing guy in the newer one not the angel wing guy from Xman Apocalypse was Ben Foster that was Ben Foster that was Ben Foster. Noted

Thespian Ben Foster. Like, Ben Foster is fucking a great actor. Like, put him in a Western. Man, that guy's great. Put him in X-Men The Last Stand as Angel. He's horrible. Well, because somebody tweeted this once. I forget the exact tweet, but it was like, you know a movie's going to be fucked up when Ben Foster appears on screen. Like, you know, shit's

going to go bad. Because he's like the partner in the crime that fucks you over. He's the crazy brother that tries to kill people. Every movie he's in. Yeah. But yeah, he was he was like... He was, like, sad that his dad didn't love him in the X-Men movie, right? Yeah. Because he he tried to cut off his angel wings but then he learned to be himself

while Magneto was attacking Alcatraz or whatever was he attacking Alcatraz or the Golden Gate? Oh the Golden Gate He used the Golden Gate Bridge and it was daytime and then it went to Alcatraz and it was nighttime for some reason. And then they

were trying to get the little boy out who can who can take a... They were using little boy's blood to create the anti-muton serum so that's when they unleashed a juggerna on Alcatraz. I'm the juggernaut, bitch! That fucking guy.

And the only buddy who could stop the juggernaut was, of course, Juno. Right. This movie was fantastic. This was the third one in the original ones, right? That's where Hugh Jackson kills Tomka Johnson at the end. Yep. Yeah, that was a bad one. That's right.

And she kills James Marsden, she kills Cyclops earlier in the movie. Did she? I don't remember that. And, yeah. She, like, Cyclops knows that Gene Gray is alive, and so he goes to the lake where she, disappeared and she's all there and she's all phoenixed out and like she doesn't know what her powers do so he she like disintegrates the captain of the

X-Men I don't remember that in the movie I remember when like Picard dies or whatever his name is you mean Professor Xavier? I'm so out of it man I took a claret in this morning and I'm usually not this out of it and like I'm just so zonked man these fucking

it's time of years tell me about life with allergies because I don't know what it's like I've never had I've developed a slight allergy maybe in the spring now where my voice gets scratchy for like a week but when I see you you look you look like so you look you look your eyes

look puffy yeah why has it always been like this have you been like this since you were a kid? I don't really remember I was telling I was telling him before we started like when I was a kid I got allergy shots because I played baseball why don't you get allergy shots now doesn't you really do anything I don't remember them ever actually

Oh so the power was inside of you all the time yeah the power did not have anything ever happen It's been inside of me my entire life. It's like you wake up in the morning. Wake up in the morning and you start sneezing. And you know how bad it's going to be instantly by how soon you sneeze after you wake up. Like if I wake up and four minutes later I sneeze three times, I'm like, oh, man. I'm the same way with scotch.

Like if I have a glass of scotch within four minutes of waking up, I know it's going to be pretty long day. It's just my right eye gets itchy. My left eye is never itchy. My right eye is itchy. A lot of sneezing. That's obviously a tribute to Lisa Lopes from, uh, TLC. Lisa Loeb?

Yeah. No, Lopes, left eye. You say. I saw Lisa Lobe at Lilith Fair. Did I ever tell you I went to Lilith Fair

when I was in college? I can totally see that. I was dating a girl who was into Sarah McLaughlin. And you were just like, man, she's so great. Like, she really speaks to me as a man. Mm-hmm.

You know? Like, I know most men are like that, but I am. Right? I remember being there and being like, are they going to plug in any of these guitars? You were listening to Melissa Ethra just come to my window

and you're like, someday, that's going to be an Applebee's, Yeah, I can't wait. And it was the worst part about Lilith Fair was that it was like, there was like a whole, remember, remember in like the 90s when, remember the 90s? Remember the 90s? Only a 90s kid will remember this thing about Lilith Fair. So there was an entire like subsection of, of female single, single female artists.

Shut the fuck up. Just put the items anywhere you want, it's fine. Female singers who were all sort of born from the Alanis Jagged Little Pill Neutron bomb that went off in music. So you had like Tracy Bonham doing mother mother. You had an artist name Po. You had your Meredith

I'm a bitch, I'm a mother. Yeah. You had all these like one hit wonders. So I imagine it was like being in the 60s back when like every band in existence had one song on the radio and all had to do with like funky dancing. Now it's time to do the flamingo octopus. Joey and the driftwood.

Doing flamingo octopus Flamingo octopus With my girl You put your You put your leg in the air You take her hand In her hand in her hand in her hand In her hand in her hand

In her hand in her hand in her hand And now you're doing flamingo octopus And now you're squaring ink in her face Flamingo oxapus There's like a You know for every Lisa lobe Or jewel At the thing

There would be a There would be like a one hit wonder who would be like, you know, and of course, like, you know, Meredith Brooks's bitch as the last song she sings, so you have to sit through six other Meredith Brooks songs that you will never get anywhere. Like the radio runs in the opposite direction when someone comes to the radio with that song. And so that was the problem with Lilithair. Maybe it's the problem with every festival. Like there's always going to be bands on there that have like the one song.

Have you been at a concert where the band played their one song to start their set and to finish their set? Because that's what Europe used to do with the final countdown. Europe would play... Like the main show or the opening act. No. Europe, when they would play a show, would open with the final countdown, and then the last encore would be the final countdown. I kind of respect that.

Yeah. You know? Play Freebird. I'll do it twice. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. People want to hear it.

Freebird! Yeah, we're going to play it every single time you say that. How about that? It's like the band at the end of Step Brothers, but they only play the Billy Joel from the 80s. It's like the opposite. at where they just play the good Joel, the Joel you want to hear. I can respect that.

Do you respect that? Yeah, absolutely. Like, think about it. Like, let's say we came out to do puck soup somewhere, like a live show. Oh, a live show like in Dallas coming up at some point? These fucking people on Twitter are no help. So we asked people on Twitter whether you should do puck soup on Thursday or Saturday in Dallas during the draft. And literally they all said. It's like even Stephen right down the middle. And then one guy's like, do it Friday.

We're like, we're at the fucking draft on Friday. That's the whole point. I don't know why John Tortero did his voice. when he did that. It was worth it Friday, she? I'm doing it Friday. Hit the track with your shoe. I don't know what to do with that.

Because like both ideas seem good in their own ways. Yeah. Now wait. So you're saying if we did a Puck Soup live show, how would it be like a one-hit wonder? Oh, like, no, like instead of us being like, you know, hey, come on out and do the hits. Do some of those, do the Patrick Lines, Stan Fisher voices. Instead, we were like, actually, we want to try something new. That's all we're going to do here.

All new stuff. This is like a test kitchen for podcasts. See, now you're getting into that other part where it's like, we're, When you're at, like, I think of this all the time when I was, I'd go to the Irish Channel in D.C. Oh, the Irish Channel. And after like a Caps game. And basically, it's just somebody there all the time playing Van Morrison covers. Like, that's all you want.

Right. Van Morrison covers in the pub until you want. And then all of a sudden he gets done with Moon Dance for the fifth time. And it's like, all right. This is an original composition. They're like, come on, man. No one's paying you for an original composition. Oh, my girl, Charlotte O'Grady, left me.

And I wrote this tune. Oh, no. This one goes out to Marry potatoes. Oh, Marry Potato. Yeah, right. Imagine we do a podcast. People are like, do Merry Potatoes. Or, like, actually, we have a new character.

It's called Irene Green Means. What? I don't want to hear that. What is that? Do many potatoes. No. Do the first call off bit about Winnipeg. Actually, how about I do the bit about responsible gun ownership?

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ad and I screwed up the percent? It was supposed to be like money off, but I said the percent instead or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget what it was for, but I was thinking about that the other day because I was talking to somebody that I I knew back in Jersey, who we worked at Great Adventure together. I worked at Great Adventure a little bit one summer during college in their communications department. But I also worked in the guest relations department at Great Adventure. Six flags for those who don't know.

And I remember they, so something happened where it was like horrible thunderstorms or some shit. They're lightning. Lightning and the thunder. Lightning and the thunder. And I was working guest relations and they're like, hey, can you make? the announcement that people have to, you know, head out of the park, unfortunately, because of this horrible storm. I'm like, sure.

So, like, I get on the mic, I'm, it's my mic, mic, mic feedback noise. I'm like, I'm like, attention guests. Because of impending and climate weather, everybody, unfortunately, has to vacate the park or find a safe area.

And then I go, it's not on the script, I just go, and we'll try to, you know, we'll try to take care of, take, take care of things. for you. Make it make it worth your while. We'll take care of you. Like a manager ran over.

I remember for the microphone. I remember it specifically. She came over and she slammed That's more better. She hit you physically? No, she slammed her hand on the... No, I would be doing this fucking podcast and someone punched me in the face while working a great adventure. She slammed her hand

on the desk next to me and she goes, what did you do? And like we had about 25 people that came over to the guest relations booth that I guess realized that they could leverage this and and we had people coming up and being like I heard you say something about making it right for us or whatever what are you going to do and then they're that had to give them like free tickets to some some other you know a month you know another part of the summer I lost the money I lost the money it reminded me that that that ad read because I'm like imagine like someone

calls up fucking zip recruiter or whatever and they're like guy on puck soup said I can get shit for free for 30% off. By the way, that's how people talk in Jersey. If you think he's doing a fake Jersey accent, that's how people in South Jersey talk. Like, that's not like a rebels or Razagame voice. Patch, Gino's, and great adventure tickets. It's all we care about. Oh, I didn't tell you the story when I went to my eye doctor on Monday.

I never told you. You didn't? It's kind of hockey-ish. It's a weird sort of hockey coincidence story. Tell me this story because you mentioned it before, yeah. So for the first time in five years, I'm like, I got to go see an eye doctor. I'm kind of overdue for a checkup. I go there.

It's fine. We get done. And it's this older gentleman out in the suburbs of Jersey. And he's doing the thing at the end where he's looking into my eyes with that white stick or whatever. Looks in both eyes. Wheels back over to my chart. He goes, you look at a computer a lot? I'm like, yeah, I'm a writer.

So I'm kind of basically looking at my computer and my phone all day. He's like, it's probably why they're dry. He's like, oh, what are you right? And I'm like, sports, but it's mostly hockey. And the second I say hockey, he just drops the pen and turns back around. He's like, hockey, really? And I'm like, oh, now I've got to talk hockey. Shit.

Always lie. Oh, I write about... High lie. I write about the death penalty and abortion. You know, just... I don't want to talk about it. But, like, he was super excited. It was like Tom Kavanaugh face,

where he was super excited to talk hockey with somebody, right? He's just finding outlet for it, yeah. So apparently, he goes, so what do you write about? I'm like, oh, this, that, or anything? He's like, just says this to me. Doesn't even say a last name. He goes, you know, Marty's one of my patients. Oh.

I'm like, instantly me know it's Marty Brodour. And I'm like, oh, that's great. He's like, yeah, he brings all his kids in here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. and they just trying to remember the name of the other son, and I can't either, because my phone's turned off because I'm in the doctor's office, because I follow the instructions, and it's Anthony, you know the other one?

No. Jeremy, okay. And he's telling. I know Antony. Could Antony get drafted as a favor? Anthony followed me on Twitter until I made fun of his dad too much, and then he got followed. Which is fair.

So he's trying to remember the name of the other son, and he's like, hold on. I'm going to call my friend who's also an eye doctor, who is engaged to Melanie. Who is Marty Brodor's ex-wife. If you're too young to remember, whenever Marty Bredor made a save in the playoffs in the 90s, Fox would then show a replay of the save

and then show his wife in the stance. Right. And as you probably know, as you probably know, Marty and Melanie got divorced after Marty kind of fooled around with Melanie's brother's wife. Right.

That's the sister. Which then began one of the single greatest bits in the history of all sports and especially filled up your sports, Flyers fans chanting Uncle Daddy at Bredor. Right. it's a great world we live in It's gross

I don't like when things get personal too much in sports But goddamn that's the best chance of all that But this is actually a good positive story about that Because not only is Marty's still married to whoever that is This guy called My eye doctor calls another high doctor To find out the name of this kid And the reason he can do is because that other doctor

Has been engaged to Melanie for like five and a half years So like he's on the phone And I can hear him through the phone He's like, Jeremy, he plays for the Sharks minor league system I can hear the whole conversation. He still hangs up and goes, well, his name is Jeremy. I heard that. But it turns out that that doctor used to be neighbors with Marty and Melanie.

And so after they got divorced, they got together. And they've been engaged for like almost five and a half years. And now they can officially get married because they couldn't get married all that time because of like alimony child support stuff. Do you want to come in and just talk about it? You need a shoulder to cry on that kind of thing? I don't know how or when. But the moral of the story is that everyone's happy. I don't know.

Maybe I don't know. I'm a doctor. I'm here to take care you. You have sad eyes. That's a medical diagnosis. You got to use whatever you have, man. I don't mind it at all. I could do something to take care of those tears.

I'm an eye doctor. I can wipe away those tears with love. So yeah, so they couldn't get married for a long time. So that means when they have their vows, she has to say some shit like, and he helped me see love again. Their first date he took her to go see that Val Kilmer movie

with Mirrorserville. What's it called again? At First Sight? Love at First Sight. Something like that, yeah. Now they're in love. That means their invitations are going to be fucking eye charts. These poor people that know this couple is the worst. Fuck.

I go out to the Jersey suburbs like once every three years and I meet a guy who knows Marty Brodor's ex-wife's new fiancée. What a world. New Jersey and Canada. We're hockey hopped out. There it is. The biggest little world, the little town of the world.

It's a little estate in the world. So lightning and caps, we're both picking the lightning. Why? Why? You have to explain that one? Well, they are the miracle caps. Did you see my tweet before? Here, I'll spell it out for you.

Tell me some tweets. There is a path to the championship that the capitals could be on. The one where you keep ignoring the Winnipeg Jets. They beat their tormentor, John Tortorella. they beat their tormentors, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They could beat Chris Kunitz in this round and all of the X-Rangers that used to beat them. And then in the final, they could beat not only

George McPhee, who's like the Big Bad, but also Mark Andre Fleury, who's like his Darth Mall in the situation where he's the last... It's like... It's like a revenge movie where you have to take out everybody in the... It's like the Punisher. It's like, you have to take out everybody

in the crime syndicate who killed your family. And like, but Flurry is the last guy. Like, Flory's the guy over. He's living in Austria or some shit. And you can just track him down and you take care of him. And now you've gotten revenge. Just giving no chance to the Jets. None.

So you think that now we... None. All right. Before we go to the Jets. None. Disrespecting Canada. Good for you. Tampa over Washington because of depth.

They're just way better. They're just way better. But what about the tenacious Cap's heart that we saw on... Braden Holpe is the only chance. If Braden Holpey goes nuts for two weeks, they can beat them. That's it. That's the only... That's the only out they have, especially if Nick Baxter can't play.

Like here, they're screwed. I just think it's, I think the situation is that they lucked out and against the penguins because the penguins' depth was ripped open and exposed because when Brassar is not doing anything and Kessel's not doing anything, you know, the Sid Gensel line can only do so much and that Malkin line never really clicked. I mean, because he worked his way back from that injury. Yeah. And yeah, Brian Rust, who by the way, is something that Press Fox rightfully described as the next

Michael Grabner. All speed, no finish. You know what? That's true, but I definitely remember tweeting that, and then, like, he scored on his next, like, seven breakaways, and I had to hear about it after every single breakaway goal. I think he has more a higher percentage of scoring on breakaways than Michael Gravner, but I see the point. When the fourth line is the only line worth a damn for the penguins, you know, they're fucked. So, um... Tampa's going to run them over.

Tampa's way too deep. And they've got home ice. And the Vasillesquist has acquitted himself quite well. Yeah, he's gotten the rest now for like five, six days, so you have to hear about tired vassel. Five games apiece in those two series. But like Holpey, man, if Holpe plays the way he did in game six, if the caps are like, that's what's going to suck about the series is the caps are going to play that dog shit hockey they played in game six because that's the only way they can win without Baxter. Did we talk about licking?

I can't remember when we did the last show. If you're ready for us to take it to the next level. It's the way that you said legs of Kimbo. I mean, I forget if we, if we, if licking was part of the last show or not with him. We did it Friday. I think we... It should have been, right? Yeah, it had to have been.

Where they were going to, they were going to talk to him. When did he, when did he tongue down Ryan Callahan again? No, we had to have talked about licking. It's impossible that we didn't. I think we didn't. What are your thoughts on licking? I think it's, I don't think you should do it unless somebody else wants you to lick them. That's a pretty simple power.

Here's the thing about unwritten rules. Yeah. Sometimes the rules are written down in society already. And therefore you don't need to write him down a second time. So when it's like, oh, he's just trying to get under their skin. Well, you know, you can talk shit. You can get a little glove facewash thing. The thing I didn't like about it was that people started to bring out like, like, is this sexual harassment?

And I'm like, okay. Wait, that's not. Was that one of the things too? That was one that was bought up. No. No one did. Fucking look it up. You saw one person.

There were people on Twitter that were like, could this be categorized a sexual harassment? And I said to myself, you know, it could. totally be that. Also, hitting another guy in the face with your stick could be classified as assault. Any number of things that are happening in labor negotiations with these players could be considered fucking highway robbery and violation of union

rules. Like, there's a billion things about hockey that could be considered to be violations of real world rules. Don't go down that path. Yeah, but like, that wasn't sexual harassment. That's just let me give voice to that for a second. If this was a jiffy loob and not the NHL and some guy came up to another guy and looked him in the

face, I think it's going to be. Sexual harassment. harassment? No. Sexual harassment has to evolve like a power structure that you're taking advantage of as opposed to like just a dude trying to be. Marchand's a first line guy. Callahan's a fourth line guy. What if he just ran his hand over his tongue and then put his hand on your face? That's not said. That's all he's doing. He's just, he's not being, there's nothing sexual about what he's doing. Licking can be term sexual. I mean, oh, it could be. Sure. So could, so could, so could, you know, listen, not to person, not to prosecute this case. But your honor. Your honor. Please exhibit C here. the defendant clearly saying after licking Leo Kamaroff of the Toronto Maple Leafs quote I don't know maybe he's sweet on me

like he I'm not going to give voice to the idea this is sexual harassment but he he played the gay panic card after the Kamarov thing and it and it really sat the wrong way with me when he did that it was some old school fucking wrestling heel gold dust bullshit

gold dust yeah that he was pulling I mean he was pulling that he was doing the licking the guy and then being like I don't know maybe he he like he like he like me or something. Oh, you think like he was trying to bait the other person into saying like a homophobic type thing? If he did a licking thing, it was just like, this is really gross. And I don't know why you're doing it. But afterwards, he was just like, I don't know, maybe he's sweet on me or whatever. I'm just like, ah, it's kind of fucked up. Oh, I don't know he said that. Yeah, he did. He did. He did. He

said that about Comorov. He didn't say that about Kamarov. He didn't say that he said that his whole deal with the Kamarov thing was he was just pretending like it never happened. Like, he was just like, maybe I did. Maybe I didn't know. He didn't say that. But he was pretending that he was pretending that he acknowledged that maybe it was a nuzzle or a cuddle. What hell's wrong with him? Something's... All right. We didn't talk about that

because I remember saying like I think something is off with him a little bit. I think we talked about it and then Callahan happened. You know what? You talk. I'm gonna...

No, I think we didn't talk about the Callahan thing. But we talked about the Comoroff. Yeah, I don't think the Calahan thing had happened when we talked Friday. Right, because I was writing licking stories during the derby. So that was Sunday.

So the licking happened probably Saturday. Yeah, we didn't talk about... We didn't talk about the Callahan thing. Sorry, everybody. Your boy's been on the road a lot. There's a lot of licking going on. a lot of licking going on. Trying to figure out

exactly what we talk about the dumb podcast. It's entirely possible by the way that we've talked about other players licking each other but it's never really happened like it's just been some fanciful bit that we did so it's very confusing

on this podcast. Fucking fanfic gets taken into reality that kind of blows up my entire business. Wait, wait the... Taves, licks, sharp. What were we talking about? Do you, so...

Oh, Tampa Washington. No, no, no. The Marchand thing is gross. We can agree it's gross. It's just gross. It's hilarious. Again, like, Elliot and I reported that the league was going to give him a warning because we were both told the league was going to give him a warning.

How that didn't happen, who's to say? My theory is that they did. He ignored it. He did it again. So they had to pretend like they didn't give it to him. If they actually did warn him, then he would have gotten fine this time. But they didn't. Like, there's been some breakdown in the communication.

Okay. Something felt like the Mets lineup card. Yeah, they batted out of order. But I do. believe that like they warned him this time and they said do it again and you're fucked and uh although like i said to i saw a reporter in washington i'm like what are the chances that when colin campbell sits down with brad marshand and has the conversation about stopping the licking of other guys what is the probability at some point during this conversation colin campbell goes

plus it's kind of fruity don't you think oh yeah oh yeah oh god It's 100%. I can totally see him. 101%. Like he's gonna say that the same way it would embarrass John Scott's family, drinking would embarrass Brad Marshan's family. You really want to skate around looking like a gay?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Thousand percent. I could 100%. Even if he doesn't believe it, he would use that in a way to try to shame Brad Marshan. And I hope if he does, no, you know why he won't do it?

He won't do it because he knows Bradd Marshan would tell everybody that he did it. That's why he won't do it. John Scott ratted him out. He knows that if he does that again, I'm like, yeah. Now, I say he's thinking it, but he won't do it. And that's why, Brad, we were thinking maybe don't be doing that anymore.

You know, it would be on sportsman-like conduct. Plus, you look like a fancy boy. I like how he smithers. Mr. Burns. Now, let's change the subject. Are the referees still calling him poundies on my son? These goalie coaches in practice, they teach in the diving still in the interference in the crease? I don't know why I turn him into Bill Cosby.

You see. The interference in the jumping and the diving and the... They take the delta golees to flop down on the ice. And give up the ghosts. Theo, if a man tells you to fall in the crease, don't fall. Wow, that's great. That was good timing. Is this still safe to do Cosby impressions?

You can't do spacey impressions anymore, probably. I never could do a spacey impression. And that's also why you've never heard by Harvey Weinstein on this podcast, also because I don't do one. Everybody's Harvey Weinstein, I assume, would just beat Tom Cruise from Tropic Thunder, who was doing Harvey Weinstein in that movie. Funny or not, Tom Cruise and Tropic Thunder? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think so.

Here's my take on it. What's your take on? Not funny, but funny in the sense that the effort was made to be funny. The joke was that that's Tom Cruise. The joke was that's Tom Cruise as Harvey Weinstein. Well, no, I don't, I didn't know Harvey Weinstein. Well, I'm a Hollywood insider, my friend. I'm in the industry.

I had no idea. Harvey Weinstein wasn't until two years ago, to be perfectly honest. Actually, now that I know who he is, he's Miramax, right? Yeah. You ever notice how many fucking shitty Miramax movies there are? You ever see a movie coming on HBO, and it's like the Miramax thing comes up, and you're like, oh, I wonder what this is going to be. And that's like Kill Bill.

Oh, this fucking movie. Oh, blasphemy. Oh, you like Kill Bill? I'd love it. The interesting thing about Miramax was the fact that he had Miramax and his brother, the other Wynstein, the other fucking fucking, he really, fuck his name with Bob Weinstein. Is it really Bob? Yeah, it is Bob. Yeah, that's my go-to for brothers.

He was the head of dimension. Dimension was the horror one that did scream. It did mimic. It did all those, like other. Yeah, it did all those movies. So it was kind of, they ruled the 90s, my friend. Yeah, Tom Cruise, I would say funny concept, but not. funny execution in Tropic Thunder.

Like, let's say that wasn't Tom Cruise playing an overweight bald guy who yells shit. Would it? It was just some overweight bald guy who just yelled stuff, like real overweight bald guy. Yeah, if it was like Jeff Garland from Curb. Oh, maybe Jeff Garland. That might have been funny to see. That would have been good.

So I think the lightning will beat the caps. I'm going to say in six, what do you say? Five. You see, here's the thing with five. What's wrong with five? Occasionally when you do this, job, you have to put things aside for real life things. Right.

And I have to go to a wedding for Game 5. Game 5 is the same night as a wedding I have to go to with Ruby in Chicago. So you want four or six? Is that what you're saying? I'm going to say four or six because I'm going to feel real guilty if, like, you know, I'm at this wedding and they close it out and I'm not there. Because I feel like, yeah, I know that, like, you have to take time to do real life things occasionally.

But at the same time, I'm clearly rooting for it to go four or six. Like, I, I, I, it's lightning wind, who gives you shit, either one is going to be a fun. team the cover in the final the caps will be a really great story if they make it i just don't need it i don't need it i don't need it i don't need it five it can't be in five counterpoint davs counterpoint brought to you by what to you buy zippa spoiler say if they so you're you're you're going to cover four go to the wedding cover one through four wedding cover six and seven if necessary so think about it yeah what's the last thing you want to do the day after a wedding go off to work Oh, yeah.

If they win in five, you get to hang out to the cup final, right? Gregory. I suppose I do. More sneakers time? But I have a sense of duty. Duty. I smell some duty. Speaking of duty, I noticed the signs are still up here on the seventh floor.

We're on the men's room now, too. Apparently, there's been some men, there's been male and female defecating that have gone against the rules of the building. Sneaking by. Surprise there isn't an intricate scanner system of badges to allow access into the bathrooms here on the seventh floor to find out how the mad shitter gets in there. Oh, it's Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Yeah. It's like Rogue Nation meets the first one. Oh, I thought you meant that the mad shitter dangles from the ceiling to the eighth floor into the

bathroom. Well, by the way, that sign says no pooping if you're not from this floor, but I guess if you're on this floor, you can still pee on the toilet seat while you're in there. I'm just going to not going to name names. Maybe you should print out your own sign. Also, yeah, just have like the door with all these different caveats. It's going to be like when you walk into a national park and it's just like all the signs of things you can't do there. No smoking. No leaving big yellow goblets of pee on the goddamn bowl. And no campfires. Now, as you do the podcast, we don't know if the Predators or the Jets are going to win Game 7. Congratulations to the Predators on winning Game 7. I would imagine so. Two days of rest for Peca René. The two days thing, I think, helps the Jets.

I think the two days thing helps Pecca because he's like 11 and 3, I think, without two days rest. I think mentally you lose Game 6 when you can close it out at home. Like, you're fucked because now you're like now I got to do this only do it there you get the extra day I think that might help but as so my only theory about the and you guys will probably know if this went this way you know by by listening to something Friday

probably but like my worry about the predators is they give up the first goal and then and then the entire arena gets the shrinking shrink their syndrome that the Capitals fans get um because I really feel like much like Capitals fans have been in the past oh don't you dare put that plague on Nashville there's a sense

of entitlement in Nashville now there's a sense of the expectation. There's a sense that we are going to win the cup. You're like Will-Bonding a lot today. I'm not Oh. You're putting that. Hold on. We'll talk about that in a second. But dude, don't you think, don't you get that sense from Predators fans? I don't know any Predators fans? I know like,

I know like J. R. Lind on Twitter. Don't you think it's their manifest destiny now to win the cup? Because they were the bridesmaid last year. That's the Toronto. That, that exists in Toronto. That's the awesome Matthews William Leander, Mitch Marner. And look what happens in Toronto. Yeah, but like, I don't think it's a sense of entitlement to

lose in six in the final of the year before and then the next year be the one seat in the President's trophy winner the next year and then think you should win the cup like that's two years it's probably been two years and you're looking at you don't do this I think at the very least they think they're going to be in the conference final and then when adversity struck in game five

that place got real quiet real quiet what are they supposed to do why do I why am I doing cause me impressions all day I'm not meaning to do this what are they supposed to do actually that's more Adam Sandler Theo throw the catfish on the ice And the bliggity black

And the fruggedy frugging a frugged a frugged Fuck everyone who throws catfish on the ice Why is that? Now who's turning heel now? Because it's stupid It's not stupid It's great It's just like the octopus

Except with a catfish That's even stupider Oh, this is ridiculous You need 16 wins now There's no 16 leg in octopus Catfish don't have legs You're stealing a stupid idea From a dumb idea

That was dumb to begin with These games are really even to start They say that the catfish is not symbolic of anything playoff related. It's just a fish. You can just throw a fucking ham on the ice. It's the same thing. They're just picking a guy they had a sea animal because some idiots in Detroit did it like 40 years earlier. Catfish are like a...

Here's a bunch of scallops. Pick them up, ice girl. It's so dumb. I'm sorry. It's like, I love you, the idea of throwing a cooked ham on. the ice. What is it mean? I don't fucking know. Here's a large pie. It's got eight slices. Just like the octopus legs.

So you're saying that we need something with 16. Just don't throw anything. Let's start the game. Oh, look, it's Brian Boucher and a fish. Oh, and NBC's taking Brian Boucher off of the game. The Pia were there. Why? He doesn't watch the game of the series. Hey, we got A.J. and Brian Boucher developing a rapport and learning a

Hey, let's get the horse racing handicapper guy and the junior hockey guy there. Fans want it. Eddie, what did you think of that play? I got Justify it. He's so good at it. Let him just do that forever. Now, counterpoint, they dress up the catfish and little outfits. Like, they're American girl.

They're insane people. That's not normal. It doesn't make it better. Hey, I got a dead animal here. Let's put it in human clothes. That's what Buffalo Bill was doing before he got Jody Foster in the house. the catfish on the ice. I don't understand this stuff.

I'd fish me. I'd fish me. But I think the fans aren't entitled. I think they're great. Okay. If the Predators advanced to face the sweet golden nights. You should cover that series.

Yeah, what do you do? Emily's got that series. Here's how it works. She's farther out west. She lives in Chicago. Yeah, but you're Greg Wischinsky. ESPN. Yeah, but I'm cursed with knowledge of the capitals. They put me on the Capitol series.

I wrote a really great piece because based on my having covered that team for the last decade or here and there I've got all this institutional knowledge about the struggles and I wrote the shit of that series. I think it's a good decision to put me on that series. However, I'm not going to get Nashville versus Las Vegas.

And granted, it's going to suck doing the Stanley Cup final without Emily because she'll be dead. Like 30%. It's going to be like Thanos snapping his fingers. 50% of the hockeyers are going to die in either Nashville or Las Vegas Vegas in the series. No, here's what you do. You cover the five or the six games at Tampa and Washington play,

and then when Nashville, Vegas goes to game seven, you show up in, oh, it's Nashville for Game 7, not Vegas. Right, but either way, it's like, it's like, oh, hey, Greg, what's up? Oh, yeah, you need someone near to write the sidebar. This is a website. We don't have sidebars. I get quotes from the other locker room that Emily's not in or what it. Do you just want to go there and drink?

Oh, no, that is just. God, dude. Yeah. Two words. Four words. Nate Schmidt. George McPhee. Right.

You're a Caps guy. That's right. You go out there and do the... If the Caps win, you can go out there and set up... Golden Knights versus Predators who would win that series. That's going to be Predson 5. Sorry. Second round was really good.

The third round's going to be bad because it's about good the second round was. Jets will be a good series if it happens, but I don't think it's going to happen. I think the Preds are going to win tonight. Breads are too good. Too deep. Same thing. Same thing as the waist. Too good.

Come on. What does your heart say? Take me through your heart. What is your heartbeat saying? Your heart being saying. Well, here's the thing. I picked the lightning in the other series, even though my heart says the caps.

Because I just feel like there's something magical happening with the caps this year. Oh, really? Now it's magical. But my head says the lightning, and I pick the lightning to be in the final. So I'm picking the lightning. So your heart is telling you Vegas and your head's telling you take the team that has four really good defensemen? My heart in my head are both telling me Vegas. What?

Against Nashville or Winnipeg. So you didn't think Vegas was going to beat San Jose. Right. But now I know that they're better than I thought they were. Okay. Like you would allow for growth. You would allow for an educational process to occur where I realize the value of this team and how good they actually are now that I saw them go through the fucking sharks. You see your mistakes and you say, hey, I'm going to learn from those.

I correct them. What's the definition of insanity? It's not picking the nights for three years. It's dressing up on fucking catfish as a baby and throwing it on the ice. That's the definition of insanity, my friend. A little tiny bottle that you put in the fish's mouth. Like a little baby. Like, imagine, like, bringing that, like, to the airport.

And, like, someone's like, what is this? Like, oh, you have to meet somebody from Homeland Security for the next 16 hours. This is my child. I'm going to throw it on the ice tonight in Winnipeg. Does anybody ever cook the fish? Does anybody ever, like, serve it somewhere? Dude, there's so much. Remember the whole thing with Batman, with the ice in Detroit and how to discuss it. You got octopus goop on top of snat, sweat, probably defecation and also urine.

You can't have it. It's gross. It freezes. The people trip. Listen, I hate Gary Betman, but he's got a point. It's weird, drawn sticky seafood on the ice before hockey games. Like, I don't know. I just... I think it's a great tradition. I mean, I let him go off on his little tangent here, but I find the catfish tradition to be admirable. I like the idea that the fans have created this amazing tradition, and I have no problem with the octopus one. It's great. It's super fun. I wish every city in the fucking league threw something on the ice, you know. What if it was less slimy? Like, like, Philly, they throw a Calzone. Coulsone. No, Jersey could be the Calzone. Philly. Jersey

would be a mob informant. They just, they just carry him down the lower bowl and throw them on the ice. That could be Vegas, too, probably. Everyone's trying to figure out my Vegas is so good. Maybe the mafia is like, eh, you guys want to to take a dive in this. See,

you're on the right track of Vegas, but in Vegas would be the hand of a cheater, they throw on

the ice. I was thinking more it'd be like glow sticks. That feels like a Vegas. They throw a carrot top on the ice.

It's just his box of props. And he's like, what I want when I got here? Oh, it's a sled. And he just like sleds off the ice.

It's great. And actually, yeah, Nashville then they should throw, they should throw Martin E. Out on the ice.

Well, I throw, , Remember, listen, I know how much you apparently hate people throwing shit on the ice, but remember in San Jose when they played Detroit in the playoffs and that dude threw a shark with a baby octopus in its mouth on the ice? Like, how baller is that? But that was like a one-off. They don't do that every time. You're saying that you have a problem with it being a game league. A knightly tradition.

Like, not even nightly. Like, if there was like one person. And by that, I mean, Kira Knightley, who's very late and you can throw on the ice wherever you want. Oh, Jack Sparrow. Throw the... Ow! Don't she know on the sexiest tomboy bean pole on the planet? I was thinking about this the other day.

How many movies between 1990 and 1999 featured Sandra Bullock as an unattractive woman that somebody figured out at the end of the movie was hot? Yeah, a lot. There's a whole cottage industry for that in the 90s. She was the embodiment of paint-covered overalls. Yeah. Every movie she was in was a version of She's All That. Every movie.

Wait, so you're telling me this girl works from home and she just sits by a computer all day? Yeah. Nobody wants that. Oh, that was the net you're doing? The net? Yeah. Like, like, the net notable for being one of the, uh, the few acting, uh, performances by noted humorous Dennis Miller as their best friend.

Hey, babe. You're hotter than the Hades hell of the sixth century. Hey, babe. Can you help me? Ha. Saving you right now is like taking the road to Colossus. Well, what is this? The Spanish Inquisition up, babe.

That's all the questions. I haven't seen as many questions since the McCarthy here. Okay, babe. Who is that? And then we were talking about the fact that he, when, uh, what's her face did the, uh, the correspondence dinner. Um, oh, his three day, his three day. He was, he was like, he's like, I'm gonna slam her on Wednesday, babe. I'm gonna look at, you know what, you know what?

I was so close. I was, right, I was so close to tweeting this because I thought for sure his joke was, I had never heard of her. Oh, well, but then like he posted a thing later that was like, I'm going to stop doing my research. Like, he really was doing. I was doing it. I was like, wait, why is everybody being willfully ignorant about him? He's not really, he really was. Yeah.

He was like, Ben, what arrives with feminism from the 13th century? That's her word. Siri. Help me up. Fucking Dennis Miller. I used to laugh at that guy so god-dall. Oh, he was, people don't understand that before he became an unfunny Republican hack that he was the embodiment of like, snark. He was the best weekend update.

He was the best. By leaps and bounds. Go ahead. want, go to YouTube and search Dennis Miller, Norm MacDonald. Let's see when Norm McDonnell was a guest on his HBO show. It was fucking incredible every single time. And the other thing about Miller was that much like now it's become commonplace with like Colin Jose doesn't really do any sketches. He's just the weekend update guy.

But like I remember that being a novelty that like, and before that it was like, you know, Chevy Chase was on update. And when Miller did it, he wasn't really a, he wasn't in any sketches. Was Jane Curried in sketches? I don't remember Jake. Oh, she was in the cone heads. Yeah. So it was such a novelty to have, like, a guy that wasn't in the other part of the show, like, be the update guy. The only sketch I remember him being in was that amazing alternative ending to It's a Wonderful Life sketch they did where they find out that Mr. Potter isn't really a cripple.

And it's Carvey doing his Jimmy Stewart impression. And it's Lovitz as Mr. Potter. And Lovitz, like, falls out of his chair and gets on his feet. And Carvey goes, you're not even a cripple. And Lovitz goes, I can explain. I gotta go find that. It's an amazing sketch. It's like it's the alternative ending to its order for life.

And they wind up beating the shit of Mr. Potter while singing all things. Oh, man. I miss Vanessa Nell sketches were just like whatever they thought of. It didn't have to be a topical. Somebody wrote the thing for Vice this week about how the opening, we're talking about us before the show. Yeah. The opening, the cold opens, how they're just like shitty political jokes for like seven minutes. Like, I mean, they've, well, that's the thing.

Like, I think in the last couple weeks, the Malaney show, the, um, uh, uh, uh, the, um, um, Donald Glover? Donald Glover show. Like, there's been a few where they've gotten a, they've done more sort of like nonsensical like sketch comedy sketches versus having to be based on anything. And I think that the show has been better for it. But apparently, someone tweeted it, but the thing where Donald Glover is like, all the guys are Cab, LeBron's teammates.

And they're like, if you need help of basketball, that's not for us. And they're like, if you need someone to pick up your clothes, I'll do it. And apparently that sketch didn't make it onto the show. Yeah. Why? I think they do a thing where they know certain sketch. are maybe built better for the web, and then they cut them so they'll go viral,

is their thought. That's my theory, at least. What are we talking about? So I think the knights beat the predators. So you're going with the... Or the Jets. Or the Jets. Wow.

Wow. Look at you. Golden Knights in the Cup final. You're rolling the dice. Yeah. I also think that maybe the league knows it's beneficial to have the Knights in the Cup final. Oh.

Greg Wischinski. ESPN reporting. As we've noted... As we've noted in the fixed expansion draft. Oh my God. $500 million goes a long way in this league. Go ahead.

Look, I... Wait, no, before you go there, let's talk about... You know why the Knights are good? The fucking salary cap. Fuck the Florida Panthers and the Columbus Blue Jackets. I couldn't even read that, man. I saw the screenshot of it without... I didn't click on the link, and I was like, no, I don't want this.

Like, there are certain things I don't want in my brain. And, you know, that's why mute is great on Twitter. Yeah. I don't need to... I don't want to know what he thinks about. No, I think it makes a lot of sense that the Florida Panthers would decide to jettison both Riley Smith and Jonathan Marsha'so and protect a shitty defenseman instead. It makes no sense. Because now this offseason, they're going to be looking for another scoring winger that would be like Riley Smith or Jonathan Marshall.

Like, I get it in certain situations, but like you didn't have to do what they did. That wasn't a requirement. The thing about the William Carlson thing is less an issue with me with Columbus making a bad. Like, no one knew he was going to score at this clip. Sure. But if you're trading a guy that you think might have potential to get the Clarkson contract off your books, there's other ways to get that contract off your books. And I'll say this, what do the knights see in him? What did the knights see in him to not only acquire him, but put him on the fucking top line with Marsha Stone Smith?

Clearly somebody there is doing their homework on William Carlson in a way that the Blue Jackets didn't. I'll say that about it. Yeah. Oh, it's a screw up for sure. It makes Jarmo look bad because Yarmot should know him better than George McFeed has. It's me, a yarn mole. Hello. I need to get rid of this Clarkson,

correct. So I need, I want to say this about the fixed expansion draft thing, which is that Ben Wright, who was the PR guy for the Atlanta Thrashers, I had him in my story. I wrote this week because I thought he'd be like, great to have because I was hoping he'd be like, fuck the nights. My chief would still exist, weren't for this fixed draft. But unfortunately, he's a really reasonable guy. But he made the point. and I think it's really good. Like, we went into this thing

they'd be shitty because expansion teams traditionally should be shitty, right? We went for all the reasons. We saw the players they took too. Like, we thought they fucked up the guys they chose a lot of. You know I was more bullish on them than you are.

I didn't go quite where you and, like, Barry went where Barry's like, the Golden Knights are going to just be dog shit. But here's a thing. His point was, maybe instead of fixing the draft for the Knights, they finally fixed the draft. In the sense that, Why should expansion teams be shitty?

Like, why do we have this mentality that, oh, you're the next one in? Well, you need to get dog shit from our rosters and be horrible. Like, A, why is it that way? And B, does it, like, look what the knights have done. Like, look what they've done for that market. Look what they've done for the league. Like, the idea of the first year team can be good is actually really good for hockey and more competitive for hockey. And, yeah, maybe we should pour one out for the teams that haven't figured their shit out in 40 years, you know,

that are not going to play for a cup where the knights might play it in their first season. But, like, being a good team in their first year is a better thing for hockey. Yeah, but they weren't supposed to be this good. This is a total accident. Everything fell on the place. The division they're in for the playoffs. All of it. Their shooting percentage is understandable.

All right, that's the only one I'm going to do. I'm sorry. So I had to do one. What are we talking about again? The Knights beating the Jets for the Predators. Yeah, I don't see them beating. I don't see them beating the Preds for sure. see them beating the Jets, I just don't think they will.

So, but whatever, I'm going to just stick to my Preds guns and just say Preds over Vegas and five. Knights and six. Knights and six. Knights and six games. Nights in that happen. Beating the Rangers. Draft picks untaken. They'll lose to the lightning.

I mean, if they can beat the Preds, they can be anybody. If they can beat the Pres, they can be anybody. Yeah, we'll be lighting. So you're... No, my cup final was Nashville lightning and national winning. And you're bailing on that? I'm bailing on it. I'm picking the Knights.

I haven't seen anybody flip-flop like this since... Since Hannah came out of the ocean and flash. Since the Great Wall of China was built. I don't know. Did that wall flip-flop? But that said, it should be Washington and the Knights for all the reasons that I spelled out earlier, but it'll end up being Tampa and the Knights because we can't have good things. As long as Nashville wins, It's a funny final for the caps no matter what.

Like not funny ha ha, but like funny, huh. It definitely won't be a snore fest, that's for sure. Speaking of snoring, today's episode of Pucks is sponsored by ZEPA. Now, you know what ZEPA is, right? It's happy Z spelled backwards, as in you're getting your Zs because it's more than a snoring device. The patented tongue strap is designed to eliminate snoring with two key features.

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Carolina hurricane related quotes, Craig. Please. This is from owner Tom. Dun done. I've come to the conclusion that strategy is pretty overrated. I don't believe the strategy differences are as important as getting the right culture and the right attitude. That's a Tom, that's a billionaire quote from Tom. And here's one gotten by Greg Wysinski,

VSPN from new head coach Rod Brendamore. Yeah, it's me. Talking about working. Talk about politics. And he says, well, we'll see how it goes. I come into this and I know what's going to happen. I'm sitting there, I'm like, does he? I wonder what it's going to be.

And here's what it's going to be involved in everything. He's going to want to be down in the coach's office every day that he's around. And here's the part that's a lie. And that's okay. We talked about it. I get this is how it's going to work. I think we'll be able to work well together. going to have to show him why we can't do what he wants to do he wants to put a guy in and play

him there and everyone knows it's not the best decision i got to show him why i got to let him know and then he's fine greg yeah the the moment i become a billionaire i am a thousandaire basically now at best and i have someone do my laundry for me drop the laundry off yeah come come and get the next day right i'm not in there telling them how to do my laundry because i am paying that person to do my laundry. When I become a billionaire and I own stuff, I am not going to be in the coaches off.

I'm picturing Tom Dunn and rolling in, like, you know, he just got off his motorcycle. He's got like a jumpsuit on. He takes his hat off and he's got that that like sunglass face. He's like sick. He's like drinking his soul. He's like,

we got to put Tom Koonakle on the top line tonight, right? And now Rodbreddemor has to waste his time fucking placating this dumbass about his lineup decisions. And here comes Greg. to now tell me why Tom Dunden is a disruptive. The movie, Last Action Hero, where a child got to go into

the movie and hang with Arnold Schwarzenegger and be an action hero with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Okay. Like, who wouldn't want to do that? It's not about... Were I a billionaire, and were I to buy through my horrible subprime mortgage company winnings and earnings?

Winnings? They are basically winnings. An NHL team. I would do the exact same thing that Tom Dunden is doing. And this is why you wouldn't be able to hire anybody except for ex-players. Also, I didn't mean, this isn't a quote, but I think it was Luke de Kock. Is that why I just like saying?

Yeah, of the Kock, yeah. It's Luke of Kock. Luke of Kock. He wrote, I am Sir Luke of Kock. My ancestors were killing birds all across the Carolina.

I am the sheriff of Block. Oh, shit, my mortal enemy. We have put up a wall around your village and you will never be able to get out to see this is very close to that dude from Galaxy Quest that you were just doing the aliens and galaxy

goes yeah yeah we need to do you feel bah ah uh huh uh uh uh uh uh uh

uh uh uh um um um you look de Kock said what? You know what were we talking about the what? Dude Kovs is what? I'm so out of it today.

Um, oh, oh the problem you see, he was in leadership because they had this guy Justin Williams who they signed for a couple years and he didn't get a letter on his jersey even though I've heard a million times, Greg, and you've heard it too. It's not about who's wearing the letters.

It's about a leadership group. Yeah, absolutely, except for every team that wins the cuff has a great captain. And apparently, Justin Williams, whose leadery, leadering leadership has been known for years or except for Dustin Brown. Was not being listened to because he wasn't wearing a letter. And now that he's going to be 37, I want to say in October, he's going to get a letter probably. And now everyone's going to listen to the guy who's got one year left on his deal with 37 years old.

That's, that's it. That's how they solve it. A letter on Justin Williams's chest, a coach and the owner talking, and no more strategy. The Tom Dunden whispering aside that Rod Brindamore apparently is going to do, which is going to be incredible, when you tell the guy, by the way, Don Waddell becomes the GM, Rod Brindamore becomes the coach. What do these two men have in common? Neither of them have been to the playoffs in the last 10 years. They're both already being paid by the team. Yep, that's that kind of next level disruption I want from my new billionaire.

And so on top of having to explain to Tom Dunden why, you know, why we just play both goalies. Well, we can't, like, here it says, um. So, I'm paying Chad Ruweedle six million a year. Why is it not out there playing? playing goalie. Why do you keep on mentioning penguins? Because he's going to sign all these guys who have cops for too much money. That's going to be his thing this summer.

So, on top of that, Brindamore, his job apparently is this. Like, he said in his press conference that I think there's a winning team in that room. And everybody's like, that's weird because they've not been in the playoffs since the dawn of man. Why do you believe this? He's like, well, they just didn't have an accountability. Accountability. Like, why didn't have accountability? well because

they didn't no one held them accountable for the things they did isn't that on your coach yeah it's not on your coaching staff it's not necessarily Bill Peter's fault and so I'm trying to uncrack or trying to crack this code here like when he says that

is he basically saying that like Ron Francis was the guy who's like sipping a drink oh let's just try to make the playoffs or whatever of all the guys in the fucking world it's gonna be Ron Francis it's a very weird deal but like basically the message that they're given out at this press conference this week is like,

we got players that can win. They just need to get a kick in the pants from Rod Brindamore. See, like, I kind of agree with that assessment that they have good enough players to make the playoffs, but the problems weren't Justin Williams' uniform. The problems weren't. But like, here's the thing. I agree with the idea that a team should never settle for,

let's try to make the playoffs as the goal. The goal should always be let's win a championship. But don't you accomplish that by bringing in someone who's done it, not as a player, but as a coach? Like, to me, that's kind of like the thing. message to the players like if you bring in Peter Lobby and he's like look boys enough of this horse shit trying to make the playoffs I have a fucking cup ring we're gonna win a Stanley Cup you're like oh that guy I'm following that guy into the into the

into the battlefield but if it's like Rod of Brindamore he's like I played you know 12 years ago on this very team and we won a cup me and a bunch of other guys that are significantly better than you are and it was when Cam Ward was good and we're gonna totally win a cup here and you guys are going to follow me they're like why are you taking face off no I'm fucking retired tired. Okay. All right, sure. You'll know what you're doing, I guess. The best way to change the culture I've always found is to have a bunch of guys who've already been there and then get rid of the strategy. The strategy was what was hurting.

What was the biggest problem with the team, Tom? What would you say strategy? We were thinking too much out there. No, I kind of understand, though, if I'm doing Dundon speak, it's that he's saying that you don't have to hire a Ghibu She. Like, you can get a guy. Like, if, and it's actually a classic hockey trope, if you think about it. Remember, remember when the Devils would try to, like, hire Tom McVee

or somebody, or, here's a great example. When the Mets hired Dallas Green, like, they bring in the shit kicker, because they really believe the players that they have on their roster are good. They just need some guy to go in there and be like, you know, a drill sergeant about it. And I guess that's maybe what he thinks Brindamore is. Brindamore is nobody's

strategist. He's not going to be a guy who's going to, like, lay out, and diagram shit, and it's, like, coursey and whatever. He's going to be a guy that screams and yells and puts baby in a corner if he doesn't perform well and that's kind of be what it is and they believe that that's what the team needs.

And I do agree that Vegas is a great example like you can just throw some shit together and be good for a year. The Caroline Hurricanes aren't like fucked or anything but like I just wouldn't necessarily be enthused if I was like Hurricanes fan but I'm willing

to, you know I'm willing to give these guys all the rope that they need to prove that it's not going to work. Yeah, you bought your car through a Tom Dundon loan. Oh, absolutely man. Oh, it's so cheap too. I mean, yeah, it ruined that family's life, but I mean, I got what I needed. Um, like, I think it's fine

that, that they did this. I'm willing to give it a shot. Am I a little bit concerned that a guy who, like you mentioned, said he was going to disrupt the process and think outside the box? And there's a lot of guys out there. I've never got a shot at this shit. And I'm going to give him a shot.

Hired Don Waddell as his GM. that is bothersome until you realize and I think that we can draw a through line from Rod Brindamore's comments through Don Waddell to Tom Dundon all of the people that are now working for this organization are advisors no other options no they're advisors to Tom Dundon who is a de facto coach a de facto GM in the owner of the team like when you think of Rick Dudley and Don Waddell do you think of like the power like these guys are like run and shop

no they're telling they're there in the same capacity that Rod Brindamore is, which is to advise and consent the things that Tom Dundon wants to do. You literally just had the coach tell me an interview this week on ESPN that his job is to listen to what Tom Dundon wants to do with the lineup and be like, I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea. So how does that help accountability, though, if you know your coach and GM are being held accountable? He's just making shit up.

Like, he's got to come up with some reason why it's going to be different. But literally, everybody in that organization that's been hired is now an advisor to the guy running the show. Because Peter Lobuillette will never go there. Guy like that will never go to a guy. But I don't think the plan was ever to get Peter Lobulet or to get Barry Trots or to get anybody of note. It's to get people that are advisors to Tom Dundon. Tom Dundon doesn't want another personality there to run the show, to be the face.

It's his team. He's going to be, I guarantee you he's going to be at the draft table. And it's going to be like, that's fine. You know, for an owner? To hang out there. He shouldn't be like, you know who I think is good as this K leaflet from the WHL? We should draft him. He's got 24 goals.

Like that's, no. But if he wants to hang out and be listened to him, that's fine. But, like, coaching the team from the press box or the owner's box, like, that's insane. What's this guy's named K. Yeah, they're all named Kesley now in junior hockey, sir. KJ. J. Jaden, Kaden? You got to get that guy. He's got a cool name.

Why should we drop this guy? He grew up in Texas. Okay. but he's number 5,000 on our draft board, sir. I thought of a good game to play at the live show if we ever had set up in Dallas. I don't want to spoil it. Okay, yeah, I had one too, but it's probably better.

It could be the same game. Mine is like the game we played in Philly with John Cryer or whatever. It was one of those three things. I think it could be pretty good. I like it. What else we got? Before we get to the question of the week, we have, oh, first off, let's go back to Marshan,

because you didn't talk about this. Do you believe that he is truthful when he says he's going to change his ways after Licking Gate? And by Licking Gate, I mean the gate on Ryan Callahan's face. No. There's one thing he said... It's easy to do, though. Like, you should be able to do it, but I don't think he cared. There's one thing he said that struck me, though.

Because, like, I do think at the end of the day, it's always bothered him that he's seen as a troll. and an agitator. He's seen as like Sean Avery, basically, without getting the credit of being a high-end talent. That's why I think the playing with Sid and Bergeron in the World Cup was a huge thing for him because people finally saw, oh, shit, this guy can hang with top-end talent.

And he scored a fuck ton of goals in last three years. But when he talked about the idea that he will never be seen as a leader in the same way that Bergeron and Charra and Bacchara and Bacchassar because of the the things he does, like, licking the faces of people. Yeah, he's way too front on the road for that to ever be a thing. I don't know, man.

Like, he's, like, south of 30. He's getting up there. He's like 28. It's like 20. I think he's turned like 29, like, next week or something. But when he said that, I'm like, oh, you know what? This guy kind of understands that the peak of his career is, is arriving on the horizon. And at some point, you have to kind of, like, become something else.

And maybe it's just projection on my part, because when I started in 2008, I was making dick jokes and now I'm actually doing some journalism and TV shit. But dick jokes are fine. It's just, you shouldn't need to be 20-9 years old to figure out you shouldn't lick people. No, I understand that, but I think he's talking about the totality of the shit he does. Like, no one is respecting, no one's putting a fucking C on this guy's jersey if he's getting suspended for licking another guy. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I think in that moment, there was a little bit of truth and honesty of self-evaluation that like, you know what, I got this far because of this shit, but now. I'm here and if I want to become something else, I can't do this anymore. And I thought that was truthful. I thought we saw a little window into the soul of Brad Marchand, assuming there is one. Let's make a bet. All right. That sounds like a bet.

At some point next season, he will do something like, you won't lick anybody, but he'll do something like it. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know what it is. We'll know when we see it. Like he'll like honk someone's nose. It's like art. You'll know. Right, right.

You'll just know when you see it. I don't know what it's going to be. I'm not talking like knee hits or low bridges or stuff like that. He'll do some weird, wacky, goofy thing. So like he puts his finger up someone's butt. See, I thought about that, but there's too much padding. You get the glove on your hand. You got to take it off, reach down in there, you know.

Someone would definitely notice. Yeah, it would take too long for it to develop. He'd have to sneak up behind the pile and... Doc, at any of the replay shows, he put his finger up his bunghole. Why is he doing Game 7? I don't understand. Because they think he's the best at what he does. Okay, so why is Eddie going?

If they thought he was the best of what he does, they wouldn't leave him on the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and the Belmont. Because he's also really good at horse racing, and I'm sure he's written into his contract, he gets to go do a horse racing. He can phone in the picks. He won't his, he hit his,

no, you know what is annoying about his picks? He hit the trifecta, I think, right? He hit the Xacta. Okay, yeah. He picked three horses, and the three of the four favorites. Like, all right, good. Steve Wano won some money on that by playing Eddie O's horses. Yeah.

Oh, you know what we forgot to talk about is, he's been to talk about it like two weeks ago. The whole player's not talking to the meeting thing. Yeah, I had there in Dan. I was going to go to that next. So Phil Kessel didn't speak after any games, and then he didn't speak on Breakdown Day for the Penguins, leaving his coach and general manager to dance around questions

as to whether or not he was healthy. And this is actually something we wanted to talk about a few weeks ago because Steve Dangle wrote a column on Sportsnet where he wrote, outrage over a player not talking to the media after a game is more dependable than the weather and then he turned his hat sideways and said yeah the weather uh it's popped up a few times recently austin matthews not talking after the charonel maple leaves lost game four to the boston bruin's raggoodus didn't speak out of the philadelphia fires were eliminated by the

pittsburgh penguins there are two main schools of thought not talking after a loss that shows a lack of accountability and number two who cares i'm curious to know which we which you subscribe to but first allow me to explain why I'm on team Who Cares? Then he goes on and you can find the article on SportsNet about it. So, I mean, obviously as a reporter, I'm never going to be on team Who cares in most cases. I think this

is a thing fans don't give a shit about. I think fans care more about your Marriott points and your airport travel and they do about, like, because they could go back to the Backstrom thing. You were like Backstrom said, fuck this league and there were more people mad about you reporting on him saying that than there were like, oh, that was great to hear because they don't want

to hear. They don't care. I don't think they I don't think they care. I think they care. That's my feeling. I think, because I always think that there's a moment where they, that fans want to understand why something happened or, or why something didn't happen. And they're curious about it. And you never hear a fan being like, well, yeah, thanks for asking that question.

Or yeah, you know, great, great, great getting that information. They just assume that it's just there for their consumption. But when we bitch about like Phil Kessel not addressing the fact, that he had an atrocious series against the capitals. The pushback comes from two different places. It comes from the Phil camp, which is the people that love Phil and are like, Phil's unimpeachable and don't treat our sweet boy wrongly.

And it comes from the other camp that says, it's on. Phil won two cups. Like, why does he have to answer your question? Well, it's because we're curious. And I'm sure there are other people out there that are curious as to why he was absolutely invisible in that series. So Chris, Chris Mueller,

the Pittsburgh radio guy, put up a poll today. It has exactly 999 votes as the time I read this. It says, as fans, do you think Phil Kessel should have spoken to the media yesterday? Yes or no? What percentage do you think yes and no has? No, 85, yes, 15. No, 62.38, no. Okay, that's closer than I thought it would be.

I just, I think it's one of those things that most fans don't care about, partly because I think they know, like, he's not going to say anything. Like, that's just how players are. Willie, though? I would like to have known about his injuries. Like, the penguins, like, Mike Sullivan being like, yeah, we had some bumps and bruises. Like, fuck you. Who's fucking hurt? We've been waiting around for a month for this.

Like, who's fucking hurt? Tell me who's hurt? But, like, I don't care. Phil Kessel's like, I could have played better. I think the thing that fans don't understand about this equation is that, like, they always assume it's the TV questions that when we're like upset about a guy not talking after a game. It's because, you know, oh, what? You're upset that he didn't tell you how it felt. to score the goal or he didn't tell you

whether this momentum can carry over to the next game. Momentum. And I'm like no, I don't give a shit about that. That's why I don't ask a question for the first three minutes to let these fucking idiots from the local TV station ask all the shit questions that they just need to get sound on. That crowd get you fired up out there before the game soon? Talk about what it meant to score

the goal that you scored in the game that we watch. What was the energy like out there? Yeah, those fucking idiots get their shit and then they walk away and then we come in to do the real journalism. And it's at that point where, you know, either you really care about it or you don't. But if you do care about it, it's because you know that we will ask a question that maybe gets insight into something that you might care about, gives us an angle that we can explore maybe that night or later on, or in some cases, they say something really interesting. Maybe it's about Tom Wilson's hit.

Maybe it's about their coach and their usage. I think the biggest disconnect between reporters and fans is that they assume that we all know the answers to the questions that we're asking. And that is horseshit. But in this case, I can see that being the case because what's Phil going to say after they get eliminated? We don't know. But I think it's one thing where a guy who gets hit by Tom Wilson isn't available after a game. it's one thing where a guy isn't available after his team's been eliminated. If I had one question for Kessel, it would be this.

If I had one question. It would be this. It would be this. Why is your sister a better player than you? No, it would be this. It would be, do you think that your game would have improved had Mike Sullivan put you back with Malkin like you were in the first round? He'd never answer it. How do you know?

Because I've... But again, like, you say that and everybody else says that, and everybody else will say that about any question that's asked, but no one knows for sure. That's why you ask the questions. But that's why he's not there is because he doesn't want to answer that question. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Maybe. It's on. You've seen that commercial? Yeah. It's on.

I keep trying to isolate it with audio. I can't get it right. I get it. Like, it's on. Listen, most answers are going to be shit. Most questions are going to be shit. But in some cases, you ask a question and you don't know beforehand what the answer is going to be. And that's

why you ask the question. That's why having available is good. And listen, I understand in having done this job for a long time, that it's okay if someone is super fucking fired up and doesn't want to talk after a game and they want, but as long as they're there the next day, that's okay

for me now. It took me a while to get through that because I obviously want the big juicy anger quote. Got to get that quote up at 11.45 at night after the game. But to not be available at all after the series that Phil had is not cool.

It's just not cool. Like, we write about you in glowing ways. You nominate you for awards and shit. Ah, that shouldn't matter. Yeah, it totally matters. And so... Are you only writing those? But maybe he didn't talk because he didn't win the colony either year.

That's probably what it is. That's not our fault. Yeah. I'm not Canadian. But like, like, we write about you in the good times. Good time. And you got to talk to us in the bad times. It's kind of how it works.

You know, that's just me. I get it. All right, let's see the mailbag. I just also, too. Our question of the week, rather. We glossed over this. I don't think we ever talked about this. Like Wayne Simmons apparently got hurt in like November

Played like 60 games with like a broken like spine or something Like a really bad injury and was like well I just want I don't want to let the team down like buddy Miss two months in the regular season to have surgery so you're healthy in the play this whole like you know Battling through shit is insane if it's gonna cost you Wayne Simmons at 50%'s not gonna win you a playoff series so if you're gonna be hurt in April Fix the shit in November or December what are you what are you doing the most of thing is like the Bruins put out the like the injury reports for the birds were online. I'm just like, what happens when they're healthy?

I know. Holy shit. Good God, man. But like when a series is over, if you're telling me what would I rather have, like Phil Kessel on blocker cleanout day or Mike Sullivan telling me all the injuries? I want the injuries. I want to know how bad things were and how much that played into, oh, you know, we don't want to make excuses. I'm not telling you to. Just tell me he was hurt.

Tell me who had what? That's it. all I say is that please understand that like the shit questions that you think we're going to ask they've already they're going to be asked in the first two minutes and then and then we do the real question why why can't local TV people just let like people who are going to ask questions ask questions like you're going to get the sound like either way they all they'll have to get out of the way so we can actually get in there because they they create a you know a helms deep uh Lord of the Rings wall of cameras that we can't get through and then they leave and then

we can get through real before we get to the question of the week which is about the the the capitals and if they're going to do the damn thing this time. Let's touch on that Wilbon thing. Wilbon called Washington a minor league city. Minor league sports. And Dan Steinberg found a column from Wilbon from 1990 in which he said, you know, the expectation shouldn't be winning the Stanley Cup. We should be happy.

They made the second round. And I'm just like, oh, man, it all comes back around again. That's J.P. Yeah. By the way, watching JPM, Japers rank on Twitter, like slowly break down psychologically every year in the playoffs is the best part of the cap thing. Like, hey guys, going into this game, if we lose the next two and don't make it, hey, we could still have fun before this, right? He was, like, in Haiti for part of the playoffs, and I DM'd him like, how are you doing?

He's just like, I'm fine. And then, like, on Twitter, it's like, you know, we could all jump off the top of the arena together. Or we could just realize that, hey, games are played and wins are losses and losses are wins. Then, like, as like the guy closer and closer, he was like, come on, fellas, let's do this. Like, oh, my God, he's actually become that person on Twitter where he's. just like, come on, be strong. We can do this. We can do it.

But we'll bond. First of all, I just want to say that I think it is funny that the caps put out a five-minute celebration video about getting past the second round. Hey. That's funny. It's funny. Guaranteed laugh from me every time somebody makes the Capitol's banners. Yeah.

After they put up that fucking winter classic champions banner of their practice rank. Attendance banners, whatever they got in that arena. The five-minute video for getting halfway to the cup is fucking funny. But that doesn't mean you're, to be like, here's why Washington's the best sports town is Because it's the sports town that's honest with itself. Yeah. They're just like, yeah, this is fucking great. We got out of the second round.

Let's party. What's wrong with that? Yeah. Someone asked me on the radio, they're like, so is it a success if the capitals don't win the cup? I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? Yes, of course it's a success. They're playing for a championship for the first time in 20 years.

It's just, like, don't know what you're wrong. Like, it's still, I still think it's weird when, like, they lose a Tampa and they're going to be like, hey, we still had a blast. Yeah. You should still be. sad about it. But like, and by and by the way, if you ask a Capitals fan, the biggest task in the last 10 years is not winning the cup. It's getting past Pittsburgh. That's all they've done the last time. Print up the T-shirts. I don't give a shit. Be happy about it. Be thrilled. Remember that Dan

Steinberg column we talked about a couple of like, I think last year about like, hey, enjoy the ride Capitals fans. You know, why allow yourself to enjoy the regular season. I hated that column. But if you made the same argument now about, you know what? no matter what happens in this series against Tampa. This is different. Love it. And I'm like, absolutely. You're playing it around.

You haven't seen your adult life probably. That's different than like winning the president's trophy and losing five out or losing in the second round or five games. This is icing on the cake and on top of the icing there's whipped cream and on top of the whipped cream there are sprinkles. On top of the sprinkles, there's a cherry. It's all there for you because you've done the thing. You've did the damn thing already. But here's the question. And next to the Sunday is a nurse helping Nick Baxter eat it because he can't lift it with it.

one hand. He's got another hand. He's got to use that one to... Yeah, you're right. Here's the question in the week is, are they going to do the damn thing? Garnett wants to know, here's the real question. What would be worse? Getting swept or losing in game seven? The answer for both the semis

and the finals? Getting swept would be better than losing in the game seven because getting swept means that you expended all of your energy to beat your arch rival and it's understandable that you get swept. That's sadder than losing in seven because, like, least you tried in third round.

Yeah. I think, like, what's the worst way they could lose? Like, what's the most caps way for them to go out? Losing in game seven. To Tampa? Yeah. Don't you think? I feel like, I feel like it would have to involve the Stanley Cup final with, like,

the Jets with the press. Like, that has like, Forsberg's scoring four goals in game seven. Oh, you mean the, oh, the worst way the capitals could go out? Like, their season ending. Is they get swept in the final, but, and Flurry has four shutouts. They need to go up three O in the cup final against Vegas and then have Flory win the last four. How great is it? A part of me wants to pick the capitals

only because of the way it's like the big The final round could be against their former GM And the last guy they've yet to beat From the Penguins in Flurry God damn, it's perfect. Matthew Perrault. It's so perfect. Matthew Perrault revenge series. Matthew writes and I wouldn't mind it.

I wouldn't mind if they did, but I don't think so. Jeff McBullan, no, not a chance. They'll be taken out by Tampa in six games. Corey says no They're going to lose in double overtime In a Game 7 on a goalie interference review Hmm Boy losing on one of those would be terrible

Doc says I just got dumber by reading this Come on man Good one doc They're just they're going to get shocked Out of the playoffs Maybe in four games A good friend Aunt Chalupa Who I'll probably see down in Tampa says

Aunt Chalupa As a lightning fan I will kindly ask you to bite your goddamn tongue don't you dare put that bad juju into this universe so help me god i will call a relative and have them put a mexican curse on the caps what a mexican curse is that worse than like a different ethnicity's curse feel like i get that half the time i go to taco baths and i run to the seventh floor bathroom and i make a big poo and they put up signs

you don't belong here are there poop wars in the building like do seven floor people go down to the six floor and like take a dump on the six floor oh you think it's like it's become like a shit prank war yeah it's just like you know they like set screens and like distract security so they can just like destroy the six hey where were you guys well we spent three hours this morning all eating asparagus and then we all simultaneously pissed in this six floor bathroom uh roger come in please where are you right now what's your six uh i'm in the vents um above the six floor toilet uh ready to the sand over uh matt writes in they got they got they got lebron who's going oh oh

They got LeBron who's going legend every night destroying everyone right now. Oh, it says the Caps, not the Caves. Of course they aren't. It's a basketball joke. Oh, it was like a V instead of the P is the joke. Rogue Run writes in, The Caps winning is a wish my heart makes. My brain refuses

to believe in this nonsense anymore. I deep sigh like Lozo when this thought enters my cranium. I'm convinced the NHO will somehow find a way to still give Crosby another cup retroactively. Again, the NHL is, we all agree with the NHL is an incompetently run organization, yet they're also genius enough to pull off conspiracies involving referees and multiple teams.

David Daniel Harshaugh, writes, and no, getting to the third is just to inflict the maximum emotional carnage. Garrett McCulloch writes in, oh, God, no, they focused all their energy and emotions on beating Petsburg. Now they'll lose in five to Tampa and Penn's fans. We'll have to hear about that one time the caps beat them in the playoffs for all eternity. cool, that's kind of accurate. Yeah, but like there's no like if, okay, how about this? This year's AFC title game.

Jets beat the Patriots, Jets losing the Super Bowl to whoever. Can you still talk shit to the Patriots? No, right. For a Jets fan, it's the Super Bowl. It's not about the Patriots. It's never going to be about the Patriots. Oh, I don't give a shit. Come on.

Bill, Curtis Martin, all these guys. It's a Met Yankees dynamic in the sense that no matter what the Jets do the Patriots. It's not as if they're going to ever climb back and clap back on them. Come on. Like, it's, it's nonsensical. It's the same thing with the Caps and Penguins fan in theory. Like, they have three cups. They beat you every time they won a cup in the Cid era. They're now nine for 11 against the Capitals and playoff series in their history. I forgot about the first one actually. Yeah, that was the double hat-trick series. Yeah. So, like, in theory, the Capitals don't really have bragging rights, although they do right now. Um, probably

Pittsburgh as a city, that reaction to losing that series was insane. Yeah. Like... Yeah, we're going to put fries in this series. Series and forget about it. Hey, what's going on? First time, long time. Can we trade Crystal Tang?

No, you can't trade Crystal Tang. He's not my show all the time. Here's Candlebox. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So, I've been saying this the other day. So everyone knows Britt McKenry is just a fucking idiot. Yeah, in that job, yeah.

She tweeted a thing that was like, you guys cheated. My caps are going to win the next game. And of all the people I've ever seen dunk on. her and everyone dunks on her. Mark Madden quote tweets here and goes, who you cover in the game for? Mark Madden did a double pump, reverse dunk on Britt McKeon. Everyone dunk.

Britt McKenry is a spray tan six foot rim. People just go up to her, boom! Send it in! But yeah, I got to give him credit because that was the fucking just a nice little quote tweet. Also, how much money do you make compared to me? Also, I'll be at Smithfield Ford this weekend. 6 to 9.

Oh, nice. All right, that's fuck suit for this week. A ramshackle edition with a sleepy Greg and a allergy-riddled lozo who luckily did up the energy enough to abone the fact that Nashville fans throw dead animals on the edge. There's so many of them, too. It's not like it just won.

They just didn't win a game. It was like the mascot, whatever, fine. It's just like a school of fish. And when they do it on the road, fuck off. It's not your building. Sneaking into fucking Pittsburgh with your goddamn fucking... All right, let's stop the show.

I'm not, we gotta do stuff. He used Axe Body Spray to cover up the smell of the fish. Remember that? Oh, the guy who did it in Pittsburgh? Yeah. Oh, great. Is he the guy that's been on, like, ESPN outside the lines? Is the same guy?

Yeah, and on our show as well. This is all your fault. He's the catfish guy. You did this. There you go. It used to be Neve was the catfish guy on MTV, but on catfish. But now it's a new catfish guy. He's a niece.

No, not Eric Neese. Eric Nees was the grind guy. Hey, what's up, guys? It's me, Eric Nees. Going to throw some catfish out here in the pool and spring break. Woo-hoo! I used to see Eric Nees on the grind, and he would be shirtless wearing pants, and he'd had, like, a 25-pack.

And I was like, I'll never look like that. Genetically, we could never look like that. I saw a guy walking his log in Hoboken yesterday doing that. He had a pair of shorts on, like, no shirt. I'm like, this is in Venice Beach, buddy? Yeah. Put a fucking, put a shirt on. Put a shirt on.

But he did have a pretty sick bod, so I know. Then it's loud. All right. You can find me at Wysinski on Twitter. You could read my stuff at ESPN.com. Thanks for everybody who does. Hey, live show announcement coming soon. We're down to two different venues.

We're going to figure it out. Promises, promises. It's probably going to be Thursday despite what everybody wants. I'm going to guess. But not everybody wants it. It's like right down the middle. I wish there was one way or the other.

Actually, Twitter would have been like, Friday. Friday. Do it Friday. No. Friday works for me. But Thursday or Saturday. It's probably going to be Thursday, I imagine. And then, you know,

there you go. All right. Thanks to everybody. You got anything you want to tell people? I'm going to go pee and then we're going to do the mailback.

All right. Mailbag come up. Also, bonus episode coming up as well. And we love you guys. Thanks for listening. We'll talk you next week. Bye.

Do do, do. do. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got spoiledly commentary to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows.

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